Amazing Cob house interiors built with earth, sand and straw.

Cob house building is a traditional building technique using hand formed lumps of earth mixed with sand and straw. Cob is easy to learn and inexpensive to build. It dries to a hardness similar to lean concrete and is used like adobe to create self supporting, load bearing walls.

The cob house method has been used for centuries throughout Western Europe, even in rainy and windy climates, as far north as the latitude of Alaska. This ancient technology doesn’t contribute to deforestation, pollution or mining, nor depend on manufactured materials or power tools. Cob is nontoxic and completely recyclable, which is important in this era of environmental degradation, dwindling natural resources and chemical contaminants.

As they are hand built and do not use a rectangular modular material, like bricks, the interiors tend to be very sculptural and three dimensional, utilising materials and forms found in nature to very beautiful effect.

Here are some examples of the types of cob house interior spaces that can be achieved.